


The Secret Garden

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle Showdown 2016, because I have run out of ideas, prompts, sort of, yet another portal jumping fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6476779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumbelle Showdown 2016 Round 3. My prompts were: Designer gown, Secret Garden, Family tree</p>
<p>Belle finds herself in a hidden garden where Rumplestiltskin is waiting for her. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secret Garden

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it wasn’t actually night yet and it was more like a minor squall, but when you’re roughly the same stature of a Just My Size Barbie anything more than a stiff breeze was enough to send you flying down the street like Piglet on a blustery day.

Belle was holed up in the small summer house she’d found at the far end of the arboretum. She’d wandered away from the charity lawn party she’d agreed to attend — a favor to a friend — not paying much attention to the other guests as she sought a safe place away from a small, but vocal group of men with more money than brains.  

Now, she was a shivering mess, the sudden storm easily defeating the concoction of expensive, imported lace she was wearing and she wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to warm up.

The summer house was open on three sides, all the better to enjoy the pristine gardens surrounding it, but it provided almost no shelter from the wind which whipped her hair out of its enameled combs, sending tendrils flying out like an electrocuted octopus while her borrowed dress clung to her like a second skin.

The day. Was a bust.

She held her hair back with one hand and her skirt down with the other while she scouted the area for anything that would keep her out of the wind and rain. There wasn’t much around, but there was a meticulously kept hedge off to her right and, if she could just find an opening, she may be able to use it as a windbreak.

She ran like a duck, her heels sinking deep into the sodden ground and she cursed to herself, the words stolen by the wind from her mouth as she realized that she would never be able to explain the state of her dress to Jefferson at all. Everything was borrowed from the hair clips all the way down to the fancy underwear she wore to keep up the illusion that she was completely bare underneath the dress she wore. All told, it was thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and now it was ruined all because she didn’t feel like plastering a smile on her face while she was looked over by avaricious men with too much alcohol in their system overriding their common courtesy.

She thought it would be fun attending the soirée with her friend whose fashion house was growing in popularity and Jefferson had been contracted to seed the party with beautiful people in stunning dresses while society mingled among them. It was an easy gig at first, but, as the day dragged on, there was no getting around the fact that some men were more eager to pinch a girl’s bum than behave in a civilized manner.

So Belle left, exploring down a manicured pathway through a small copse carpeted with bluebells on either side. The copse led to a terrace, which led to a rose garden, which led to a babbling brook, which meandered underneath a bridge and that’s when the weather turned. She had just enough time to run to the summer house when she realized that she’d wandered farther than she meant to and that it might actually be quicker to move on than to go back the way she came.

She followed along the hedge, its blue-green green leaves towering above her (but what didn’t?) until she rounded a corner and realized that it was the opening she sought. The effect was immediate. All at once, the wind died down and the pattering rain stopped completely.

Strange, she thought, looking up at the roiling gray clouds above her, but she wasn’t going to question it. A quick glance around told her that the hedge was actually the outer edge of a maze and that she could probably find the entrance to the botanical gardens on the other side if the map of the grounds she glanced at was accurate. She could either go around it in the rain or go through in relative dryness.

She forged ahead, twisting down one way then turning another as an opening appeared. She knew that the groundskeeper couldn’t make a public maze too difficult, but, as she wandered farther, she suspected she was going in circles. There was no way to tell. No marker or identifying feature gave away her location, the hedges rose up around the path all around her without variation and, for all she knew, she was just chasing her own tail.

Blast! She turned around, eyes wide and her heart beating that much faster as she tried to come to a decision. She was stuck in the maze and she was faced with the humiliation of a rescue and probably only yards away from the exit point. Taking a deep breath, she steeled her nerves and took the right hand passage. She would do this herself even if she had to walk all night.

Two more corners later, the path widened into a small clearing inside which was a gnarled, old tree with twisted branches completely out of place in the pristine maze that she simply stared at the strangeness of it for a moment before she noticed an old-fashioned wooden swing on one low-hanging branch and that she might take a rest before she set off again.

She sat down carefully, mindful of splinters, but once she was off her feet, she realized how tired she was and sighed in relief as she gently swayed back and forth, her head leaning against the rope.

“You’re late,” a low-timbered voice accused just behind her left ear and Belle shrieked, hopping off the swing and whirling around, a heel firmly stuck in the grass, wheeling her arms out to catch her balance. She found herself caught up in the strong arms of the mysterious man who spoke.

“Who—” she whispered, staring up at him, her blue eyes meeting his soft brown in a startled wonder that left her breathless. His eyes were kind and full of a warmth that she felt all the way down to her shaking knees.

His lip twitched as he gazed back at her, cherishing the sight of her. “I was hoping we’d have more time together, but never mind. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.” His eyes were swimming, but he blinked the tears back.

He set her back down on her feet and backed away, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m Rum,” he said, his accent thick and strange. “You’re in my garden, Miss…”

“Belle,” she told him, blinking at his unusual appearance. He was dressed in bizarre clothing, mostly leather with scraps of frilly lace about his neck pinned with a wagon wheel broach. It didn’t matter what he wore, her eyes were drawn inexorably to his face and the bashful smile that wrinkled his cheeks, a glimmer of crooked teeth flashing before they were hidden by thin lips pressed together as he tried to contain his excitement.

“Belle,” he breathed, wonderingly. “After all this time?”

“I beg your pardon?”  

“So many centuries I’ve waited. And now you’re Belle again. And you’re here.”

She eyed him warily. “And where is “here”?”

“Our garden,” he said, simply. “Look! It’s already growing another branch,” he exclaimed, and Belle gasped as a knot of wood grew before her very eyes.

“I don’t understand,” said, circling the tree, noting that etched into the bark of every branch were various names while “Belle” was carved deep into the main trunk in curling letters. “Who are they?”

“They’re you — or, versions of you. I’ve been waiting for so long. Every year I wait in our garden, hoping you would come back to me, even for a few minutes.” His voice broke and he looked away, swallowing thickly. “And now you’re Belle again,” he whispered before glancing back up to her with a broken expression. “Yet I dare not hope.”

“Hope? For what?” she asked, though she knew deep down that she knew the answer. Knew it like she knew the size of her shoe or the color of her eyes and that he felt more right than anything ever felt before.

He smiled again, a sad, tremulous thing. “Why, that you’ll stay with me. You never do, but then, I’ve never been able to give you a reason to. Not in the time allotted at least,” he added with a grimace.

His words washed over her as she stared into his eyes. “Stay? Here?”

“No, at our castle.” He chuckled, shaking his head at an inside joke, then pierced her with his gaze again, his eyes searching hers. “Tell me, Belle, do you believe in reincarnation?”

Her blood thrummed through her veins and something deep inside her heart whispered a resounding ‘yes’. “M-maybe?”

“Would you like to?” He offered a trembling hand to her, hope filling his eyes as she took it.


End file.
